eDiscovery is not one size-fits-all. Organizations can deploy a wide range of eDiscovery tools, from review platforms to purpose-fit applications, to enhance practices and improve efficiency  across the EDRM. As the legal industry grows more nuanced and dimensional, eDiscovery professionals likely need to expand their expertise and toolkit to match the complexity of their projects and the data they handle.

With new technology promising ‘faster, better, more,’ legal teams have more options than ever to address the evolving data landscape.  

However, no one wants to pull the trigger on tech that they have not vetted and are not sure will work. The stakes are too high, but legal teams do not want to fall behind, either. What should practitioners consider when it comes to selecting new tech? How do you cut through the noise, news and propaganda to get a handle on the latest advancements? 

Choosing the Right Technology 

New tech is exciting but evaluating it can be daunting. You need to see it in a larger context to understand if it can really move the needle or if other tools are better options. Technology must be evaluated and validated to ensure it meets the desired goals and metrics. Here are some considerations legal teams should make: 

Evaluating and Validating Tools 

Companies must lean on experts to help them compare technologies and find the best tools to fit their purpose. It’s important to understand the difference between evaluation and validation. 

• Evaluation (or “vetting”) involves comparing different versions of technology to determine which performs better in achieving the desired goals. Thorough evaluation requires understanding what you’re trying to accomplish, establishing your metric or your goal, and then comparing two different versions of a system to determine which gets you to the same recall level at a lower document review count. 

• Validation involves statistical sampling of unreviewed populations and usually happens once you’ve used a technology to complete a task and want to make sure it’s done a thorough job—you’ve found all the responsive documents, identified all the personally-identifiable information (PII), and not much, if anything, has been left behind. 

Strategies for Vetting Technology and Gaining Adoption  

 With hundreds of solutions on the market, it would be impossible for any single company to know and understand the potential of each one. Vetting (also known as evaluating) involves creating a framework for evaluating technology that will best fit your organization and team, finding internal champions, aligning technology with business needs, and considering ease of use, vendor support, and security. Strategies for effectively vetting technology and gaining internal buy-in and adoption typically require vendor partners who will collaborate on testing the tools in a cost-efficient way.  

Tools for Handling Emerging Data Types  

 Handling emerging data types, such as mobile data, collaboration platforms, and hyperlinked documents, present numerous challenges. The tools used to collect this new data are as important as the tools used to process it. Proper collection is vital—collecting data incorrectly up front prevents processing tools from effectively handling new data formats.

A centralized data exchange platform—a document-receiving system personalized to case-specific needs in complex litigation—is a strategy that facilitates the exchange, storage, access, search, and analysis of data and documents. Centralized data exchange platforms are designed to manage data in complex litigation and provide an efficient and cost-effective solution to the challenges presented by emerging data types. 

Additionally, CDS offers useful tools for managing emerging data types at every stage along the EDRM. CDS Convert is a built-for-purpose short message data conversion tool that supports over 35 platforms, including Microsoft Teams and Slack. One of the greatest challenges to handling Slack data is the volume of attachments is unknown at the outset, and can balloon the total dataset. Fortunately, with CDS Convert we can identify the number and size of attachments prior to download. In one use case, the original data size was 110 GB of Slack chat data, which would have grown to 1.2 TB with attachments. By using CDS Convert’s pre-conversion reporting and filtering, our client identified the relevant messages and exported just 56 GB, achieving significant cost savings for hosting and review.

Once data is in Relativity, CDS Vision is a practical and helpful tool to cull the set. CDS Vision offers a curated set of over 100 visualization dashboards that help case teams gain insight into their data and make strategic decisions. The First Look dashboard specifically is a one-stop shop for all of the vital information contained within initial data sets. It allows users to quickly identify and address problematic data sets, missing date ranges, corrupt or password protected files, foreign language documents and non-standard file types that require additional consideration.    

Challenges of Hyperlinked Documents  

Emails seem smaller now because they no longer include “attached” files. Instead, they are hyperlinks that live in other places, which can dramatically increase the amount of data a corporation must retain, particularly in relation to email attachments and SharePoint/OneDrive data. Companies must understand the limitations of tools, choose vendors that can handle these challenges. 

Courts have specified that technology must be used as it exists now, not hypothetical technology that could link documents and create a parent-child relationship, but instead the technology currently available to link the documents to the original emails. A significant challenge will likely involve obtaining the contemporaneous versions that existed when the email was sent, rather than the most recent version in OneDrive.

Trust, but Verify: Generative AI  

Generative AI has burst onto the eDiscovery scene, bringing many challenges and benefits. Although lawyers are traditionally conservative regarding technology and clients might be reluctant to have their data be the test case, as GenAI becomes more culturally pervasive there is a push to use it to create efficiency moving forward. 

While we might rely on Generative AI to do some of the work, in the end, a human still needs to evaluate it. Many generative AI tools specifically for the eDiscovery industry have both a built-in validation feature and an acknowledgement that humans will need to look at the results and make their own judgments.  

Staying Ahead of the Curve  

Using tailor-made tools for different types of projects is common in the eDiscovery industry, and users increasingly prioritize advanced features over cost-effectiveness. However, legal teams should consider vendor reputation and the need for credible sources in the industry. Vendors frequently provide testimony and companies need to ensure that the vendor they’ve chosen can speak effectively and represent them well in court. 

To create a framework for evaluating technology to fit your organization, your matters, and your team, you need to lean on experts to help you compare and find the tools that best fit your purpose. CDS provides insights to help practitioners stay informed and educated with multiple review platforms and 20+ technologies. We offer proprietary solutions like CDS Convert for chat data processing review and production, and CDS Vision with dashboards to spotlight key matter insights, and time- and cost-saving automated workflows.